


Phone Calls

by Rosemarycat5



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crying, Episode 75, Episode: e075 The Ben Arnold Show, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, I'd really like there to be comfort later in the fic, Minor Character Death, Sammy calls in from the Void, Shadows - Freeform, Temporary Character Death, for now, notebooks, sammy is taken by the void, the ben arnold show
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28520706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosemarycat5/pseuds/Rosemarycat5
Summary: Sammy is taken by the void. Ben mourns and eventually goes back to work. Until one night when a familiar voice calls into the studio.
Relationships: Ben Arnold & Sammy Stevens, Ben Arnold/Emily Potter (background), ben arnold & troy krieghauser
Kudos: 18





	1. Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy. Hello, and welcome to a world of emotions. This AU is based off of an idea I had, and I am really proud of myself for actually writing it.
> 
> TW in end notes.

“Sammy, please, just drive to the auditorium.” Ben’s voice nearly cracked with the tears that were threatening to flow free. He couldn’t lose Sammy. He just couldn’t lose him.

“Ben, I want to. I can’t tell you how much I want to, but--” Sammy’s tear-stricken voice was cut off by a scream: Walt’s scream. Sammy choked back a sob. “Ben, I am so sorry.”

Ben leaned towards the microphone like it was a lifeline, the now-silent crowd forgotten. “Dude. It’s OK. You have nothing to be sorry about. Just drive to the auditorium, and it will all be OK. Please, Sammy.”

Sammy was crying, and he struggled to get the words out. “Ben, I can’t. I-- It’s here, and the car, it’s--” There was a deep booming laugh that echoed over the phone line in the background. “It’s lights went out.”

“Oh my god. Oh my god,” Ben said, mostly to himself. He tried to pull himself together, to say _anything_ that would help bring Sammy back. “Just-- just keep driving, OK? Don’t stop until you’re safe. OK?” There was a pause. “Can you do that for me, Sammy?”

There was a miserable sound from the other end of the line. A shaky voice came through. “Ben, I can’t. It’s here, and there’s no stopping it. It-- it killed Walt. Walt was only here because of me, and I-- Ben, I want you to know that I love you and that thi--”

The line cut off.

“Sammy?”

Dead silence.

No. Bad. Don’t say dead. _Never_ say dead. Never pick line one, and _never say dead_.

Ben broke down and was crying openly. “Sammy? Sammy, please answer me. Please just. Oh my god.”

Emily, who had been frozen in place like everybody else until that moment, rushed over to Ben and wrapped her arms around him as he sobbed. Troy got up, made eye contact with Emily who gave him a little nod, and headed out to Perdition Wood to try, at least try, to find Sammy. Or at least find a body that would bring some level of closure to a matter that had as much chance of closing as the doorway to Hell that lurked in that very forest.

He didn’t find Sammy. He found a totaled car with the engine running, the doors all open, and each headlight smashed to pieces.

* * *

They searched the woods for weeks. They found Walt’s body. His death offered no relief to anyone, but there was the smallest bit of gratefulness that he wasn’t taken by the shadows. He was dead, but he wasn’t trapped in the Void.

Like Sammy.

In the end, Sammy was declared a missing person. Not dead without a body to show for it, just… missing. Temporarily. At least that was what Ben tried to tell himself the first few weeks.

His mourning was a road more twisted and easy to get lost in than any an apparition could have dreamed up. The first few weeks were full of searching, of activity. Herschel tried to never leave Mr. Sheffield’s side, but he came out every night to look for Sammy. He put a hand on Ben’s shoulder and made it very clear that despite the grief he gave them, there would be no leaving someone behind. But they couldn’t search the woods forever.

The next stage was filled with notebooks. No thought was too idle to warrant its own page, nothing was beyond suspicion.

But it led nowhere. More time passed than Emily had been gone, and it struck him that maybe Sammy wasn’t coming back. There was numbness, there was pain, and there was sadness.

Eventually, there was moving forward. Merv hadn’t pushed him about going back to work, but there was a time slot reserved for Ben Arnold, and… he took it. It hurt too much to do the show alone most of the time, so Emily would come on more often then her sleep schedule should reasonably have allowed. And Troy would come up whenever he had a night off. And when neither was available, Chet was always there to keep him company, something that Ben used to hate, but came to feel grateful for. Chet could be gross, but he did care a lot for Ben. Everyone did. Mary stayed up one night to come in. Ron came in from time to time. Hell, even Jacob Williams had volunteered to help keep Ben company once or twice.

Lily left town. Sammy’s disappearance was a final straw for her. She didn’t reach out to Ben after she left, but he texted Pippa and found out she was staying with her and her wife for the time being.

Things did not get better, but they became stable. A fragile stability, like a perfectly balanced seesaw. It only took one mention of a name for things to lean one way or the other.

Things grew to a sort of normal, but somewhere, buried deep in Ben’s heart stats, was a tiny glimmer of hope that Sammy wasn’t gone forever. That glimmer drove him to still keep a notebook in his backpack just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: temporary major character death (non-graphic), minor character death (non-graphic), mourning/grief,  
> Please, let me know if there are other TWs I should add. 
> 
> One note on Troy and Emily's reactions: They definitely are crushed by what happened, but I see both of them as very calm in a crisis type people, so I tried to show that here. 
> 
> Comments are super appreciated!


	2. You're Alive On King Falls AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben hears from a familiar caller.

There had been a sense of normalcy for a while by the time Ben got the phone call. It was an average night at the station, though a little odd because he was alone. Emily had planned to come in, but had to cancel at the last minute, and Ben hadn’t had time to schedule anyone else in. Troy had offered to come up or find somebody, but Ben assured him that he would be fine for one night. And if he wasn’t? He could always call or play a best-of or something. But he would be _fine_.

And was fine. He was a bit on autopilot, but that constituted fine these days. He had rambled on for a while about the news, and had just gotten off a call with Mary, which was always a treat. He chose another line.

“Hello, and you’re live on King Falls AM!” Always King Falls AM, never The Ben Arnold Show.

The voice on the other end was staticky and unrecognizable. “Hello? This is Ben Arnold of King Falls AM?”

“Um, yes, that’s me.” This call was a little strange. He considered dumping it, but decided to press on. “You’re sounding a little staticky there, buddy.”

“Oh. Uh. I’ll try to fix that. Can you hear me at least?”

“Yep, I can hear you. Why have you called in tonight?”

“Well um.” A staticky laugh. “This is gonna sound a little strange, but I found this number in a book. It told me to call tonight.”

Ben’s blood ran cold. “Holy shit, is this you, Debbie?”

It didn’t really sound like her, but it was hard to tell through all the static.

“What? No. Whose Debbie?”

Ben relaxed, but only slightly. His fear had an edge of anger. Maybe more than an edge. Debbie and her shadowfucks took Sammy. He had a zero tolerance policy for them. “Then who the fuck is this?”

“Hold on just a sec. I’m gonna try to clear up the static a little bit.” There was a soft thump on the line, and the static cleared up. “Is that better? Can you hear me?”

Ben froze. He opened and closed his mouth, unable to speak. After a second he managed to squeak a response, a lump solidly in his throat. “Sammy?”

There was a brief pause. “How do you know my name? Did the book tell you?”

Ben was choked with tears. “Sammy! Sammy, it’s me. It’s Ben! You-- Oh my god, Sammy, I can’t believe you’re really here. You’re-- oh my god-- you’re alive!”

“That’s-- That’s not--” There was a buzzing sound, and the lights in the studio flickered on and off.

“Sammy. Sammy, are you ok? Where are you? Wherever you are, we’ll come to you! Just tell me where you are.”

“I’m in a… No, that’s not right. This isn’t a real place…” Sammy’s voice trailed off.

Ben didn’t give a shit that the lights had gone out completely, leaving only the dim emergency lights on. Sammy was on the line. He was on the line, and he was alive, and Ben was going to see him again. “Sammy, that doesn’t matter. Just tell me how to find you, and I’ll do it.”

“I’m in a…” Something seemed to come into focus for Sammy, and he began to speak much more clearly, sounding much more like himself. “Oh my god. Oh my god. Ben! Ben, I remember. Oh my god. I’m forgotten, but I remember! Oh fuck. Ben! Ben, can you hear me?”

Tears streamed down the sides of his face, but Ben let a smile burst through. “Yes! Sammy, I can hear you! Where are you? How can I get to you?”

“I’m uh… I’m not in a place.” There was fear in his voice. “I’m-- It’s all fading, and oh god, it’s so cold here, Ben. It’s so cold, and it’s dark.”

“Sammy, I-- Just, tell me how to get to you, and I will come. You don’t have to stay in the cold. You can…” He choked on his tears. “You can come home, and we can go to Troy’s. They have that big fireplace, right? We’ll go there, and you can get warm. Just tell me how I can get to you, and we can go there right now. Ok, Sammy? Just-- Just tell me how to find you!”

“There’s not, there’s no finding. There’s only the cold. And the dark. And--” Sammy sounded terrified and his words began to resemble the kind of stuff Debbie would say. Ben hated it. He wanted to bring Sammy home and never have to hear him sound so scared again. But hearing him scared was a thousand times better than never hearing him again. He had to keep him on the line. He had to find out how to get to him. Instinctually, Ben pulled out his notebook and was furiously scribbling down everything Sammy said. A thought occurred to him from that tiny bit of hope he had saved.

“Sammy. Sammy, listen to me. The book. What does the book say?”

“It says so much. It has names, like your name, like um… “ There was a sound of frantic page-flipping. “Debbie’s name is here, and Emily’s, and… ”

“Is this the same book Debbie had? Is it that kid’s diary?”

“No. It’s… oh Jack In The Box Jesus.”

“What? What is it?”

“Ben, this is your notebook! It’s the first goddamn Emily notebook! But there’s more than just what you had in here. And you remember page ten, “Who is Sammy Stevens?” Well, there are answers now.”

“What? What-- What does it say?”

Sammy’s voice sounded flat and far away. The emergency studio lights started flickering. “Sammy Stevens is one of the Forgotten.” The line went dead.

“Sammy? Sammy?! Oh my god, you can’t do this to me again! Sammy, answer me!”

The studio lights flickered back on as Ben sat there crying into his notebook as he wrote down every goddamn word of that conversation. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the studio door opened. Troy had been listening after all. He’d heard everything. He wrapped Ben up in a hug, and Ben sobbed into his shoulder.

“Oh, it’s gonna be alright, little buddy,” Troy said softly.

“Did you hear him?”

“Yeah, I heard ‘im”

“He’s alive. Troy, he’s really alive.” Through the sobs, Ben’s voice hardened into fierce determination. “I’m going to get him back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't think of any specific TWs for this chapter, but let me know if there are any I should add.  
> This is all I have written so far, but let me know if I should add to it!  
> I really liked playing with how much Sammy would sound like Sammy and how much he would sound like Debbie. I took advantage of the the phrase "the forgotten do not remember what is not true" to make Sammy (and Debbie and Jack by extension) be the Forgotten.  
> I also made sure to use the line "Can you hear me?" because of Ben's song in the the musical.
> 
> This was really cool to actually write. It is the first fic that I am writing not as a part of an exchange, but just for fun. The concept was inspired by Debbie's ability to call in as well as Tim calling in when taken by the rainbow lights. I hope you enjoyed! I'd like to add more to this, but first I have to figure out what comes next. 
> 
> Comments are very appreciated!


End file.
